Nicola Barker - Wide Open

“Understanding? Understanding ! Is that what you call it? You never had an understanding with me. Never! You never wanted an understanding with me!”

“You’re my daughter,” Sara said evenly, “of course I have an understanding with you.”

“You never liked me. Do you think I couldn’t tell? Every time I was ill you wished I’d die. But I’m not dead. I’m here. I’m here and you can’t ignore me. And I’m not going to die.”

“But I don’t want you to die.” Sara was confused. “I don’t understand where all this is coming from. I’m not even seeing Luke any more. It was nothing .”

“I don’t care about Luke!”

“But you obviously do care. Why would you hide in the dark spying on us both if you didn’t care about it?”

“You don’t know what I care about. You don’t understand anything about me!”

Sara began to lose her temper. “What is this? Of course I care about you. What do you expect to gain by telling me that I don’t care about you?”

“Waiting for me to die!” Lily screamed, flecks of foam spilling down her chin. “Like I was some sick animal. You never liked me. You never took any interest in me. You didn’t love me. But you love that fishy pig. That stinking man. You love him but you never loved me…” Lily’s hands were clawing at her chest, “and I’m your daughter !”

“You know what?” Sara was angry now, she took a step backwards to give herself room. “I do love you, but sometimes I don’t like you very much.”

Lily exploded. “You hate me! I know you hate me!”

“No. But I don’t like the way you treat me and I don’t like the way you kill my hens and I don’t like the way you sneak around the place as if I’m some kind of fool who doesn’t have a clue about what you’re up to.”

“ I didn’t kill your fucking hens. I never killed your fucking hens! ”

Lily smashed her fist into the roof of Nathan’s car.

“ Never! Never! Never! Never! ”

Sara stepped forward and tried to stop Lily from denting Nathan’s roof. She attempted to grab her flailing arms. Lily was powerful though and knocked her away.

“ Let go of me, you fucking bitch! ”

Sara decided that the moment had come to raise her voice. “Don’t you dare call me a bitch! And don’t you dare swear like that in front of me again!”

Lily clenched her fists and then swung out her right arm with all her might. Her knuckle made a temporary connection with Sara’s jaw. Sara’s jaw gave a brief little clicking sound and then she discovered herself down on the floor, on her back like some kind of bug, legs up, arms everywhere, sliding around in the mud. Lily stood over her, almost unnerved by the success of her assault. “You won’t kill me,” she whispered, “not you, not Dad.”

Sara lay at Lily’s feet, looking up at her. This is it, she thought, this is really it. With as much force as she could muster, she kicked out her leg towards Lily’s ankles. Before Lily knew what was happening, her feet had slipped out from under her and her head had smashed into the passenger door of Nathan’s car with a resounding crackl

Sara scrambled to her feet.

“No,” she growled through her stiff, throbbing jaw. “I have no intention of killing you, Lily, not even if sometimes I feel pretty sorely bloody tempted.”

She turned away, then turned back again. “And if you touch another one of my hens I’ll turf you out and let you live in the barn with the rest of the animals. Is that understood?”

Lily didn’t speak. Not at first. But as Sara slammed her way into the house she could have sworn she heard a selection of words which sounded suspiciously like ‘I love you’.

She stopped in her tracks, blinked. Her mind went into a kind of reverse. Then she played that strange audiotape over again in her head. She realized that what had in fact been uttered was ‘Fuck you’. But without much emphasis. Well that, she told herself firmly, has got to be better than nothing.

♦

“Are you bleeding?” Connie was bent over Lily, trying to discover which was the top end of her and which the bottom. Lily didn’t answer her question, but she grunted, thereby indicating that her head was obscured by the car’s undercarriage.

“Are you hurt? We heard the bang from the kitchen as your head hit the door.”

“Congratulations,” Lily croaked.

Connie fastened her hands around Lily’s midriff and yanked her out from under the car. Then she straightened herself up again. “I think Sara hurt her jaw. She was cradling it when she ran upstairs.”

Lily didn’t react.

“That was quite some disagreement.”

“I hate her.”

“I get the impression that the feeling’s pretty mutual at the moment.”

Lily tried to pull herself up into a sitting position. “She was screwing that fish-farm.”

“Luke?”

“Yes.” Lily shook her head experimentally. “Ow!”

“I bet you’ll have a big bump,” Connie observed, watching her.

“I hope I broke her fucking jaw,” Lily said thickly.

“Can I help you inside?” Connie put out her hand.

“I’m never stepping into that house again. I’ll sleep in the barn first.”

“Did you ever sleep in the barn before?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t think it’s a great idea to start now. You might be concussed.”

“Fuck off, anyway.”

“You know,” Connie squatted down, “my mother had an affair when I was your age.”

“So what?”

“I know how bad it feels at first, that’s all. But when you get older it doesn’t seem to matter so much. You realize that your parents are only human and it’s actually quite a relief.”

“I am older.”

“Even older then.”

While they spoke, Nathan gradually picked his way over towards the car. He was buttoning up his coat. He had his book tucked under his arm.

“Are you going somewhere?” she asked.

“I’m heading off,” he said, “it’s very late.”

He stood next to the car and ran his hand over the roof. “Why didn’t you just punch your mother to start off with and leave my car out of it?” he said tersely.

“Don’t piss around with me,” Lily said coldly, “if you haven’t already noticed, I don’t have much of a sense of humour.”

“But I had noticed,” Nathan said gently, “because it seems such a pity.”

“I’m going in,” Lily announced, pushing herself up and then staggering over towards the house.

Connie tried to inspect the roof for damage. “Did she dent it?”

“No.”

“Will you drive home now?”

“Probably.”

Nathan walked around to the driver’s side of the car and opened the door. “I really didn’t mean to upset you before, Nathan,” Connie said suddenly.

“But you did,” Nathan replied cheerfully, “and people always do.”

He climbed inside the car, slammed his door shut and started up the engine.

What had he meant, Connie wondered, that I did hurt him or that I did mean to hurt him? Which was it? And what was the difference between the two?

Nathan put the car into reverse. Connie frowned, then took a few steps back to allow him space to manoeuvre.

Jim awoke to the sound of the fridge door closing. It seemed that he’d fallen asleep after all, against the entire sum of his good intentions, curled up in a ball at the end of the sofa. He unwound himself slightly, feeling stiff. His neck hurt. He moved his arm and realized that he’d been covered in a blanket. He felt warm. When he opened his eyes a fraction he saw that it was light outside, light inside. And he could no longer hear the rain falling. Only seagulls and the sea. He closed his eyes again. He heard Ronny moving around in the kitchen. He imagined him making breakfast for the two of them. This image was so sweet, so conjugal, so incongruous, that he smiled and for a brief moment allowed himself to dwell on it.